Series on the History of Chinese Philosophy, Pt. 16
The Poetics of Normativity in the Zhuangzi
From the Pipes of Heaven to Moral Knack
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Q: “What did the river-rapid say to the tsunami?”
A: “Nothing — they both just WAVED.”
Welcome to Part 16 of the series! In this entry we’re looking deeper into the normative themes of the book named for the Daoist sage Zhuangzi. If you’ve missed the previous installments, you can check them out here:
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the Zhuangzi is one of the most humorous texts in the history of ideas. The 17th chapter — “Autumn Floods” — actually starts with an allegory about a flooding river meeting the north sea — but instead of just “waving”, they enter into a philosophical discussion about large vs. small, noble vs. base, and the value of studying dào!
We saw in Part 15 how Zhuangzi lays out a philosophical exploration of perspective through the use of allegory, metaphor, and allusion. We highlighted passages underscoring Zhuangzi’s advice to take our cues from the spontaneity of nature, practice untroubled wandering, and discover the usefulness of uselessness.
Since offering advice is always a form of prescription — i.e. it tells someone what they “ought” to do — philosophers call it “normative.” But, what we need to get a handle on is how Zhuangzi’s sort of advice is MUCH more than just a series of epistemic prescriptions akin to “thinking outside the box”…
It’s really a kind of moral prescription about how human beings should live and act in the world.
Zhuangzi’s main concern is summed up by Harvard historian Michael Puett, when he states: “we literally are living in a way that makes us sick, unhappy, and leads us to an early death” because we allow the yinyang harmony within our lives somehow to get out of whack… one way or another.
Zhuangzi thought the Confucian advice to “carve and polish” our moral character and “rectify the names” of our social roles went too far into the yang side of things. He likewise thought Laozi’s ethic of yielding and softness, of being an “uncarved block” and a “universal ravine”, went too far in the yin direction.
Harmony and the Pipes of Nature
It’s true that Zhuangzi had plenty of criticism to go around!
In fact, NONE were safe from his satirical wit and playful use of language. This is no more apparent than in his second chapter, known as Qí Wù Lùn [齊物論].
The word lùn is the same one used to refer to the “sayings” of Confucius and is very likely an intentional attempt to troll any Confucians who might be reading. The word qí adds several layers of nuance, too. It depicts stalks of grain growing evenly, though each unique, in a field of living things that are mutually responsive & democratically self-arranged.
What’s more, there’s at least three different ways this combination of characters could be interpreted. Kuang-ming Wu, who offers “Things and Theories Sorting Themselves” as a translation of the chapter heading, best explains this ambiguity:
Two points of contention have traditionally been tossed about on this title, which is proverbially difficult to interpret: (a) whether this chapter is a lun (“theory,” “discourse,” “discussion”) about ch’i wu (“unity,” “equality,” “parity,” “arrangement,” among things), or a ch’i-ing [“leveling”] of wu-lun (“theories of things”), or a ch’i-ing of things (wu) and theories (lun), and (b) what ch’i means, whether “arguing for the natural parities of things,” or “letting things sort themselves out into their natural parities.” … [But] to argue for anyone of these positions is not to let things sort themselves out into their natural parities… Such playful soaring and roaming among theories and things welcomes every position without committing to any. (p. 154)
The second chapter opens with a story about Master Qi of Nanguo, whose name implies he’s from the “south slums” where the “commoners” dwell, and yet he’s nonetheless able to offer great insight and teach his attendant about the “pipes of heaven and earth.”
This exchange is immediately followed by a comparison of great understanding, which is described as “elegant and easy-going” [閑閑], and petty understanding, which is “scattered and lazy” [閒閒]. The Zhuangzi suggests the most harmonious lives are those that can harmonize the broadest perspectives with the narrowest ones. Those stuck in their petty perspectives view the vibrations of others as a nuisance, while those with a broad perspective are able to resonate with those frequencies and join in the refrain. The difference, it appears, is between seeing oneself as an isolated individual in a society or as a contributing member of a community.
Jung H. Lee has called Zhuangzi’s method a “poetics of normativity,” which emphasizes the use of metaphorical language in the text and “rests on the Daoist understanding of the Way (dào) as the ultimate source of normativity.” (p. 43)
For Lee, the language of the Zhuangzi is normative BECAUSE it’s poetic — as in the original sense of the Greek poiesis, or “bringing forth.” Such words are meant to bring forth a transformation in those who hear them. They’re meant to elicit a kind of attunement with the transformations of the world that displays both a heightened awareness (míng) and responsiveness (yìng) described by Zhuangzi as mirroring “the workings of the Way itself in Nature.” Such transformation can either accord with dào or work against it. It can be either harmonious or cacophonous.
So, for someone like Zhuangzi, what we might call ‘thinking’ is not physically delimited by our brains or even our bodies, but instead is found in a dynamic interplay and continuity between humanity and nature, or, as Lee puts it elsewhere (borrowing the words of Henry James) it is to be “finely aware and richly responsible.”
The Twittering of Baby Birds
Zhuangzi may not be the philosopher post-truth society deserves, but he is the philosopher it needs right now!
Who better to hold up a mirror to the grotesqueries of our time than someone who equated public discourse with the twittering of birds? Spend any time talking with others online and you’ll quickly see how LIMITED that kind of discourse truly can be. Disagreements often become heated because people, locked inside their own vocabularies, tend to speak past one another. Zhuangzi believed a sage would be able to listen to others on THEIR terms:
Words are not just wind. Words have something to say. But if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the twittering of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn’t there?…
How do spoken words come to be obscured, such that they are subject to judgments of “true” or “false?” How can a path (dao) be walked and not really exist? How can words exist and be “unallowable?” (Ch. 2, Watson tr.)
The limitation of language in capturing reality is a recurring theme throughout the text, and in later chapters, we learn there’s even a deeper sort of attunement available to the sage — something like listening without ANY terms at all. In Chapter 26 we read:
The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him? (Watson tr.)
The text even gives a name to the sort of words Zhuangzi used:
Since the whole world acts as if mired in a bog, Zhuangzi could not speak directly. So he used ‘goblet words’ [zhīyán] to effuse meaning… Even though they seem mere folly they are worth observing, for through them he brought forth ever-cascading truths. (Ch. 33)
The zhīyán name may be a reference to an ancient irrigation vessel known as the qīqí [欹器] which tipped and spilled its contents once it reached capacity. Like that ancient practical joke known as the Pythagorean cup, Zhuangzi’s goblet words are drained of their content once their usefulness has been exceeded.
The text admits to employing words as tools, meant to be dismissed as soon as their meaning is grasped. Philosophers who become enamored with words are like a traveler who can’t disembark from the ship. The Zhuangzi suggests it’s better to allow for semantic properties to shift so one can ‘forget’ the vessel and just focus on the journey.
The point Zhuangzi makes is that understanding the unique natures of others can foster a type of respect, a respect that allows these others to exercise their own autonomy in becoming what they are.
The Hinge of the Way
Achieving such recognition, according to Zhuangzi, is to occupy the dàoshū [道樞] — commonly translated as the hub/hinge/axis of dào — a place “in which ‘this’ and ‘that’ no longer find their opposites. When the hinge is fitted into the socket, it can respond endlessly.” The dàoshū is the central position from which one can witness distinctions dissolving into an alternating wax and wane of an encompassing dào. Only from this position is the kind of unperturbed, effortless action of wúwéi really possible… in the eye of a storm, one finds calm; from the center of the wheel, a potter shapes the clay.
There’s a deep connection between daòshū and the natural spontaneity of zìrán within yīnyáng practices, too.
The explanation for this eternal generation is the fact that the Dao itself contains yin and yang… The assumption that order and generation are implicit in the fabric of being is most apparent within the concept of ziran… Yinyang is the source and manifestation of ziran. (p. 52–3)
So, natural spontaneity isn’t just an emergent, indeterminate, and natural cosmological unfolding, it’s also a principle of action rooted in “mysterious efficacy” [xuándé 玄德], which imparts a strategy for achieving harmony. The emphasis, for Zhuangzi however, is NOT on making warranted assertions about the world, but instead a kind of deep comprehension of one’s surroundings that can come from ordinary practice.
Only the man of far-reaching vision knows how to comprehend things as one. His assertion is lodged in ordinary practice. Ordinary practice means use; use is comprehension; to comprehend is to grasp — once you grasp it, you’re nearly there! Reliance on assertion ends, and when it ends and you do not even know it is so — that is called Dao. (Ch. 2, Watson tr.)
Those who insist on using words to “carve nature at its joints” are just trying to paint a picture of the wind.
Reckless Conversations and Transformation
Zhuangzi wanted those navel-gazing scholars, so enamored with their words, to stop squawking about their petty little views and start listening. He wanted them to wake up from their self-imposed delusions. For example, one of his imaginary figures (whose name means “Mr. Tall Dyandra Tree”) replies to an acquaintance (“Mr. Jittery Magpie”) who has just asked him about Confucius:
I’m going to try speaking with reckless abandon and I want you to listen just as recklessly… You and little baby Confucius [Qiu] are just dreams and me telling you you’re a dream is also a dream. (Ch. 2)
But, can a tree really speak to a magpie? No… not as long as the magpie expects an answer in the same chirps and caws it’s used to, that is!
Yet, a tree’s silence can speak volumes… if only the birds will stop their ceaseless twittering and listen!
And this helps explain why the Qíwùlùn chapter — which features the lengthiest discussion of language in the text — begins with a dialogue regarding attunement between the pipes of humanity, earth, and nature [人; 地; 天] and ends with an allegory in which Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly and learned a lesson about the ever-changing cosmos.
The closing lines of the chapter read: “Between Zhou and a butterfly there is certainly some difference. This is called transformation of things [wùhuà].”
This is important as it suggests the point of the butterfly story is that, from a broad perspective, the fleeting distinctions between small things like people and butterflies should indicate fluidity in the transformation of nature.
Tu Wei-ming summed it up nicely when he described this vision as seeing “all modalities of being” as “organically connected… integral parts of a continuous process of cosmic transformation.” (p. 78) As he put it, to understand this point is to realize that, “we are consanguineous with nature. But as humans, we must make ourselves worthy of such a relationship,” through our own transformations and attunement with the processes of nature.
As such, the attunement of the Daoist sage should be considered formless and ever-changing. If one could become THAT finely aware and THAT richly responsible, it would be like continuously waking from a dream.
The Secret of Nourishing Life
Notice that this kind of attunement doesn’t require anything special — it’s attainable through ordinary, everyday practices. In fact, the Zhuangzi presents the inarticulate ‘knack’ of butchers, carvers, fisherman, and wheelwrights as just the sort of thing that might qualify someone as a sage.
The Zhuangzi is full of such stories, which have come to be known as the ‘knack passages.’
One of the longest knack passages (making up the whole third chapter) tells the story of a butcher named Ding. By ancient Chinese standards, his occupation is totally gross, yet he performs his task with such elegance and grace that his lord claims to have learned from him yāng shēng zhŭ — i.e. “the secret of nourishing life.” In this brief parable, Zhuangzi employs the zhòngyán form of his goblet words and puts wisdom in the mouth and the hands of someone other would’ve found disgusting.
As Butcher Ding explains it, his knack goes a “step beyond skill” [進乎技矣] or merely “using one’s hands effectively.”
This helps drive home the point that dào is NOT extraordinary. It is right at home in the most common of practices, but most people don’t know how to approach the complexities of life, so they hack and chop at problems rather than developing an effortless knack.
The “knack passages” revere the spontaneity of ordinary folks who have become virtuosos in their chosen craft. As Joseph Needham has stated it:
Their general burden is that wonderful skills cannot be taught or transferred, but are attainable by minute concentration on the Tao running through natural objects of all kinds… The Taoists probably saw in those who exhibited these skills a certain admirable self-forgetfulness arising out of an extremely close contact with the processes of Nature. (p. 121)
Contemporary researchers have called this state “flow.” The artisans Zhuangzi holds up as immersed in such flow states, act from wúwéi:
at one moment and in one way; by attending to the situation until it moves him, he discovers the move which is ‘inevitable’ (bu de yi, the one in which he ‘has no alternative’) like a physical reflex. But he hits on it only if he perceives with perfect clarity, as though in a mirror. (Angus C. Graham, in Mair p. 9)
This doesn’t mean there’s only ONE proper action to be taken in a given situation, but rather suggests the importance of moral imagination — i.e. the ability to intuitively imagine a full range of options when making moral decisions. Someone possessing the moral knack of a sage would be able to intuit their response without needing to deliberate on, or argue about, the options.
In the Part 17, we’ll look at how Zhuangzi’s view of knack links up with contemporary research on expertise and moral imagination.
Hope to see you there!
